Home for the holidays: Issues remain, but Legislature leaves town

First, the state Senate left town and a day later, House members decided it was time for them to start celebrating the holidays.

That’s right, they have decided vacation is more important than finishing the final pieces of the state budget. Yes, the state budget that was suppose to be done back in June.

This isn’t good on any level.

On Thursday, Gov. Ed Rendell finally released the normal state appropriations to Penn State, Temple University, the University of Pittsburgh and Lincoln University.

The universities should have received roughly $300 million in subsidies by now of their $688.4 million combined appropriation. According to the budget compromise, the money was suppose to come once the state knew that it would be receiving income generated by allowing table games in Pennsylvania.

The House passed a bill Tuesday allowing the games, but it is different from the Senate bill approved Wednesday.

If the state Senate lived in the world the rest of us do, members wouldn’t have passed their version and then immediately left town.

If the House lived in the world the rest of us do, members wouldn’t have said that if the Senate wasn’t going to be here to figure this out, it won’t be here either.

In their worlds, it’s better having this drag into 2010 and heading home for the holidays than getting the gambling bill approved as they said they would.

This from the people who were part of the 101-day delay in approving the basic state budget this year.

It was not only the longest delay in state history, but Pennsylvania was the last state in the country to finally come to grips with a spending plan.

The governor said on Thursday the state could be looking at further furloughs if the table games bill is not approved by early January.

This latest gamesmanship is being played out against an incredibly distressing backdrop of 25 current and former legislators and aides from both parties who have been formally arraigned on public corruption charges. This on top of the conviction of former state Sen. Vince Fumo, once arguably the most powerful politician in Harrisburg, who is serving a 55-month term in a Kentucky prison.

Meanwhile, the state also is facing huge issues such as a looming pension crisis that has no simple solution and one that will affect taxpayers in almost every school district in the state. In addition, many of the largest natural gas companies in the world are flocking to Pennsylvania to tap into the huge Marcellus Shale natural gas reserves.

Yet of the top 15 gas-producing states, we are the only one not to have a severance tax and almost three quarters of the wells are not subject to the state’s corporate net income tax. But our legislators won’t act on these or many of the other incredibly important issues.

The rank-and-file legislators need to demand more of their leadership. And the people of Pennsylvania need to demand more of our Legislature.

When you go to work today or when you’re out looking for work today because you lost your job in this difficult economy, take a moment to think of our legislators already home for the holidays.